Tag Archives: challenge

I haven’t watched Cooking Channel much at all, but a commercial for Cutthroat Kitchen caught my eye.

Host Alton Brown is always good for a laugh.

If you haven’t seen the show, four professional chefs compete in cooking challenges while Alton Brown sabotages them.

But there’s a catch.

He actually gives each chef money at the beginning of the game so that they can bid to sabotage each other, making the timed competition even more challenging. The eventual winner keeps whatever money he has left at the end of the game.

As the episode comes to an end, I realize it’s not for me.

It reminds me too much of hazing…or those degrading initiation days that some of my high school clubs subjected new members to freshman year. The folks in charge are laughing, but it’s more mean-spirited than funny.

First, I woke up at 4 a.m. — jet lag — so my day has been much longer than I anticipated. I got some actual work accomplished, and emailed and IM’ed with some folks who were still at their desks on the other side of the world.

I was very productive…and I should sleep really well tonight.

My business meeting also lasted a lot longer than I thought it would, so I didn’t have time for any sightseeing as originally planned. But the session went great, the client is happy, and I can devote the rest of my time in Tokyo to play.

Speaking of time, I need to spend quite a bit more checking my wish list and studying the Tokyo subway map. That puppy is going to require my complete attention if I am going to actually end up in the areas of the city where I want to visit.

I’m watching Food Network Star right now, which has been in Las Vegas for the past couple of weeks.

But it certainly doesn’t look like Vegas.

Every time Bobby, Alton or Giada — the show’s three hallowed hosts — stand before this season’s contestants to set up a challenge, it looks like they are shooting the episode in an empty room. Or vacant parking lot.

Food Network goes to such great lengths to clear out the ‘normal folk’ during production, Vegas looks nothing like the manic city I have experienced every time I’ve had the chance to visit.

Why go to the expense of using Vegas as your backdrop if you’re going to make it sterile and still? You might as well fake the whole thing at the Food Network studios here in New York City.

The show’s producers must have heard me. They just announced this week’s survivors are coming to Manhattan for the remainder of the season.

Earlier this evening a friend on Facebook posted the challenge: “Favorite three TV shows of all time” —

Go.

At first glance, I thought it an easy question. Then I noticed the comments were few in number; many people had only listed one or two shows instead of the requested three.

After spending some time on the topic, now I understand why.

My first favorite was immediate and top of mind: The West Wing. From episode one until the the drama drew its last breath, I was one of its biggest fans and most vocal supporters. It’s what television — and government, for that matter — should be.

Jed Bartlet is still my president.

My second choice is more of a sentimental favorite. I wrote my television programming paper on Cheers as a freshman in college and rightly predicted that it was a comedy that had long legs.

I also watched Cheers — perhaps not with the same religious fervor as West Wing — but until its end. And it was way cool to eventually live just a few blocks from the Boston bar that served as its inspiration.

My third choice was the hardest one. I watch a lot of television, a lot of great television — House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Breaking Bad —but I decided, if I was honest, I should choose the show that turned me into a schoolgirl fanatic:

Downton Abbey

I have the DVDs. And the hardback companion. And the bound scripts. And a couple of pictures on my office bulletin board.

“What in the world is a ‘sticky egg?’ And what would I do with one?” — pretty much everybody

This year at Halloween, The Sticky Egg presented a ‘trick or treat’ challenge to readers: ‘LIKE’ my page on Facebook, and receive a ‘real’ sticky egg.

Tens of you accepted my terms, and sticky eggs were soon winging their way across the country via snail mail. I have received many lovely notes of thanks over the past month, with the prevailing opinion that sticky eggs “are really sticky!”

Have I ever lied to you?

One reader (and very dear friend) also shared a video, which offers one idea of what to do with a sticky egg. Turn your head sideways for optimal viewing.